


That's ShowBizantine

by completetheory



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Mild Language, Nonbinary Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25518619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completetheory/pseuds/completetheory
Summary: Sunny always goes above and beyond to preserve the Masquerade and minimize the loss of human life in the process. Simon Milligan can't die, but remaining alive, he is... inconvenient.(A short primer on what it takes for the Camarilla to tie up loose ends.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	That's ShowBizantine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadScientific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadScientific/gifts).



_Good God, you’re terrifying._

That was a thought, paradoxically calm while the rest of Simon Milligan’s body went into paralytic shutdown. He was crouching inside his closet like a small child, trying and failing to process the events of that night in the abandoned Linda Vista hospital.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at - the creature - but he _had_ gotten a fairly good look at the fledgling, and his memory was still replaying that curious wet sound of arms being torn out of their sockets. 

Helpfully. 

Now here was the other monster, apparently unhurt from the hospital deep dive, and dropping a broken camera in front of Simon; a camera with red, sticky ooze all over it. 

“What happened?” Simon whispered, unable to speak any louder, or to scream for help. No one would come, even if they heard him. Most of the people in this building minded their own business, and let the devil take the hindmost. Hell, that was Hollywood all over.

“Your crew is dead. I’m sorry.” This new monster was oddly gentle in voice and eyes, even if their face looked like a trainwreck had a baby with a cave hyena, and the offspring got the raw end of both. They had a hunch, Simon was noticing the longer he was able to observe, but it didn’t seem to cause them pain. It almost looked like part of an ancient evolutionary design. 

What _was_ he looking at?

“The thing. What was the thing? How are you - are you one of them?” Simon wanted badly to run, and probably could have fit through the grate, but he couldn’t make himself. It had been all he could do before to escape, all the fight _and_ flight had bled out of him, leaving the spectacularly useless freeze response.

“I killed her.” The monster, incredibly, sounded sad about that, too. “Don’t worry. She’s not going to hurt anyone else. And I’m not going to hurt you either. It’s complicated, but the most important thing is that you’re not in trouble, or danger. Okay?”

Simon didn’t exactly calm down, but he didn’t look more afraid, either. That was encouraging progress, and this - _entity_ \- hunkered down even further, looking almost more comfortable with all four limbs nearer the ground. Despite the corded muscle, jutting bone and odd fleshy distortion, the complete lack of physical or verbal threat was helping. 

“Right. Right. Okay. So you killed her.” Simon repeated, albeit numbly, with only a trace of recognition, “Not a mark on you, you’re, some, kind of demon, then. Am I close?”

“If I tell you, I have to swear you to secrecy. You’ve already seen enough to put you in serious danger from others. So I can’t leave things as they are. But I will give you a choice, okay? I can leave, right now, if you promise not to tell anyone about this. If I do, the police will want to know what happened to your crew, and you won’t be able to tell them. They might accuse you of doing it. You might go to prison, or a mental institution.”

“I’m not really liking this option.” Simon kept the thin veneer of calm only just-so over pitched and rising hysteria - bad enough all his coworkers were dead, and he didn’t even dislike them, it was just business - he absolutely did not want to be blamed for their murder, or sent away somewhere... And feeling like he no longer had a grip on what was real was not helping convince him he could talk his way out of an institution, either.

“I wouldn’t, either. But if you come with me, I’ll help you make sense of it. And you can’t ever go back to this life, but this life was already ruined for you the moment you stepped into that hospital. I won’t abandon you unless you really want me to go.”

Something about the way Simon’s _guest_ phrased that last part broke through the cloudy post-traumatic stress, and Simon scooted up and grabbed the clothing rail for support. He made himself take a few deep breaths, and the monster gave him some time to do so. 

“All right.” Simon crossed the room unsteadily, picking a photograph up off the desk, and looking from it to the guest crouched in his bedroom like a classless lawn ornament. “I thought this was a cheap prosthetic fake, but it’s - one of you, isn’t it.” 

He handed the photo out to them, and they took it with a hand closer to a great, twisted paw tipped with rending talons. 

“Yes.” Carefully, the monster put the photo away, “I have to keep this, sorry. It’s very important that humans don’t know about us.”

“You know you could keep the secret a lot better if you didn’t eat entire film crews.” Simon stepped back, “Sorry--I’m sorry--” 

“It’s okay. Pisha was, uhm. Not with the group I’m with. It’s a really long story. And I can’t talk about it here. It would be a lot better if you got some things together and then came with me, so we can report the entire crew missing, including you. In a few years, you might be able to come back...”

Simon took a deep breath - another, really longing for the solidifying and fortifying effect of whiskey, but he’d have to settle for deep breaths because his doctor told him to lay off the spirits - and then rummaged around for a suitcase. “Right. Right, right. Okay. What was your name?” 

“Sunday. You can call me Sunny, if you like.” The gnarled murder-demon smiled at him, and he bit his tongue, experiencing a range of bizarre emotions, only some of them negative. Of course this could all be an act to lull him into a false sense of security, or to get him to a more convenient place to dismember, but why? They had him dead to rights, right here in his bedroom. 

Mechanically he packed the necessities, including a (discreetly, he hoped) cell phone, just in case shit got incredibly wild and he did need to explain somehow to the cops that he had been kidnapped by the lovechild of Dracula and Quasimodo, but as soon as he’d made the comparison he realized he couldn’t get it out of his head. Quasimodo was the hideous one who was secretly gentle and all that, proving that humans were not destined to behave as what they appeared.

Except every other trashy Hollywood shitfest went on to prove essentially the opposite, and Simon hadn’t ever read the book - who had the time? Still. 

“You probably won’t be able to use the credit cards without being tracked. But I know someone who can transfer the money to a different account, so bring them anyway.” Sunday suggested, looking every so often to the door. Once Simon had finished packing, Sunday picked up the suitcase with no apparent effort, adding another bag’s worth of things from Simon’s fridge, and then accompanied him downstairs. 

It was still early in the morning, Simon guessed about four am, and he glanced up at the security camera as they passed, but the red light on it was absent. Sunday saw him looking, giving a hapless little shrug. 

“I promise I’ll explain everything.” 

Simon hadn’t ever had reason to go into the Los Angeles Sanitary Sewer Network, for the show, or recreationally. He was surprised to find it spacious and mostly clean - of course, the _storm drains_ would be, and there was probably a difference between the wastewater that came from homes and the excess rainwater that went-... God knew where. Maybe he didn’t know as much about water treatment systems as he should, but Sunday seemed to know, effortlessly navigating around the outbound pipes and gesturing up at the odd maintenance hole with a, “St. Louis street,” or an, “Evergreen avenue. We’re near the cemetery now.” 

“I’d really rather walk on the street.” Simon shared, picking his way through and around the (thankfully clear) water. 

“Can’t get up here, this is a drop shaft connection. There’s no ladder.” Sunny paused, “I’m not taking you the scenic route, I promise. We’re almost there.” 

‘There’ turned out to be a strange hole in the wall sort of living space, complete with mailbox attachment. Inside was a hollowed out room that looked like a defunct maintenance chamber, buttressed with beautiful old arches. There was furniture scattered about, a bed, a lamp, a generously-sized fridge, a desk with a computer... it also had an old rug that took the chill from the stone floor like a champ. 

“You live down here?” Simon intuited, as Sunny dropped the bags and prowled over immediately to check their emails. They obviously did, and nodded, typing a quick response to someone before turning their full attention to him. 

“Okay. So. We have something called the Masquerade. It means wherever possible, we, vampires, pretend to act like humans. That’s easier for some of us than others.” Sunny was wry on that last point, “If we break the Masquerade by revealing ourselves to humans, our own society comes down on us. We police ourselves because it’s better if mortals don’t know about us just yet.” 

Simon sat on the bed, searching for the catch. Obviously he was a human and shouldn’t know, but this Pisha hadn’t been affiliated, Sunday had already said that. Vampires being real was actually surprisingly _unsurprising_ to him. He’d had to fake the ghost shit for his TV show, but with over 60% of Americans claiming to have had a ghostly encounter of some kind - well, it couldn’t all be bullshit. Maybe it was actually vampires!

“So are ghosts real?” He decided to verify that, first.

Sunday’s expression twisted into one of extremely Do Not Want, “ _Yes._ ”

“Err. Right, I won’t poke at anything sore.” Simon fidgeted, not sure where to go from there that wouldn’t be offensive, but throughout all this, Sunday had only been as threatening as their face had shown, and no further. They’d been downright patient with his freakout, and he had a feeling if he brought it up, he’d only receive more of the same quiet understanding.

“It’s okay. I met a pretty bad one early on. He tried to drop an elevator on me, and he was really awful to his wife and kids.” 

For a moment Simon was more than a little interested in the whereabouts of said ghost, but filming actual supernatural material was probably against the terms and conditions of Sunday’s Masquerade, and he deflated again. “Let’s get mercenary, shall we? What does this whole thing mean for me in the long run?” 

Sunday lugged the bag of food over to the fridge, and began to put it away. “In the long run, it means you have to hide away for a little while. In the short term... you have to speak with my Prince.” 

“Your Prince.” Simon repeated, “Who’s that?” 

The fridge shut with a quiet click, and Sunday brought the suitcase over to slide it under the bed, obviously fine with Simon sleeping there for a little while. It was the most thoughtful crisis Simon had ever been in. 

“You know Sebastian LaCroix? The CEO of LaCroix Enterprises.” At Simon’s somewhat confused nod, Sunday added, “She’s a vampire too.”

Between mention of the _Masquerade_ , Pisha hiding in the hospital, and the hint of hierarchy there with ‘Princes’, Simon was beginning to understand that this was an iceberg-tip of a world he’d formerly been moving blithely through, unawares. He was only just tamping down on his anxiety, watching Sunday move across to a small wooden ledge bolted into the wall and putting a coffeemaker on. Presumably for him? Did vampires drink coffee? 

“So,” Sunday continued, “You’ll talk to the Prince and explain what happened to you, and she’ll figure out the best way to avoid anyone else getting hurt or discovered. Usually I’d wait to see if LaCroix wanted me, or her Sheriff, to kill Pisha, but I felt like she was too dangerous to leave alone, I didn’t want to lose track of someone willing to kill so many humans at once for no reason.”

The _for no reason_ absolutely hinted to Simon that Sunday thought there **were** legitimate reasons, but they also didn’t have the remorseless bearing of a serial killer. That alone was going a long way to Simon’s ability to think rationally about all this. 

“Wait a minute. Exactly how many vampires are in this city, right now?” 

Sunday paused, but not out of an unwillingness to inform. They actually looked to be counting. “Uhm... I don’t know all of them, but so far I’ve personally met ..about ten? There are more than that, but not too many more, I don’t think.” 

Well, ten vampires for a city of 3.8 million probably explained why it was new news to Simon that they existed. A spectacular run of bad luck to have bumped into one of them, too. 

“If we can get out in the next hour, we can make it safely tonight.” Sunday checked the clock on their computer, “The Prince can see us right away. Otherwise we have to wait until tomorrow night.” 

They brought coffee over and Simon accepted it. He didn’t realize exactly how much he needed it until he was drinking it, but between gulps, he managed to get out, “I can probably get going in five minutes. I’m putting a lot of trust in you not to just throw my body into the river, you know.” 

“I know. Thank you.” 

The simple thanks floored Simon for a moment, at which point he realized he’d definitely been in Hollywood too long, if ‘basic gratitude’ was so peculiar. He was spared deeper examination of that troublesome feeling when Sunday continued.

“Is there anyone else who’d miss you if you were gone?” 

“Well. In about a week my editor is going to wonder why I haven’t mailed him anything, but we don’t talk outside of work. Uh, I have a - payment or two left on the van, but you probably more meant friends, significant others, and family, right? --I never realized how much of a loser I really was until just now. Not that it’s easy, in this day and age. Once you hit thirty it’s like you don’t have any way to meet people... unless they’re monster cannibal people, apparently.”

Sunday had opened their jaggedy mouth to offer something, possibly commiseration, when Simon said that about not having any loved ones, then closed it, glanced to one side, and half laughed. “It’s true. I can only think of one person who might be missing me, and as far as I know, she didn’t file a report with the police.” 

“So is this how everyone joins Vampire Fight Club?” Simon asked, finishing the coffee and starting to try without success to compose his outfit and hair. If this Prince was a big deal, it might be helpful to look half-decent, and not like he’d just spent an evening in an abandoned hospital and then hiding away in his bedroom in mortal terror. Or maybe going for the sympathy vote was better? 

“You look fine.” Sunday assured him, which was rich coming from someone whose fashion sense appeared to run _‘goblin fetish’_ , “And I don’t know, I’ve only been at this for a month. But I took somebody back to my hotel room who turned out to be Kindred - that’s our word for vampires - and she sired me.”

The question, reasonable as it was; _you’re a month old?_ , died somewhere in transit from Simon’s brain to his mouth, and what came out instead was a vastly inferior, “You’re a baby vampire.” 

“Fledgling.” Sunday squirmed under the scrutiny, looking more than a little embarrassed, “Yeah.” 

“A baby vampire stood up to that monster for me.” Simon repeated, rubbing the back of his head. He followed Sunday out, waiting for them to lock up, and then followed them on - what he expected would be round two of The Sewer Maze, but this time it was only a few short connection pipes to an internal storage room with an elevator. Sunday lived _very_ close to this Prince. 

“The Prince gets a lot of Nosferatu visitors.” Sunny explained, “We can’t use the front door, so she had this elevator put in for us. That’s why the--her clan, they usually sire Kindred who were rich kine, so they have the ability to do things like this for us.” 

Simon sat back in the elevator, boosted by the caffeine back into a more anxious state, but finding it hard to broach the topic with Sunday; they seemed so fond of this Prince, even with the few words they’d said already.

Even without saying it, Sunday picked up on it, and reassured, “I promise she won’t hurt you. I’ll keep you safe - and she wouldn’t, anyway. She cares about humans. It’s one of the reasons I like her so much, she told me explicitly not to hurt them twice, now.” 

Simon rubbed his face. “Right. I guess that would be bad publicity...” He looked over as the elevator doors opened, and then followed Sunday out and into the hall. The desire to just run was almost omnipresent, but he’d made it this far, so he continued tagging along after the Nosferatu like a lost puppy. Even when he saw the enormous fuck-off vampire standing behind the desk, absolutely dwarfing the one in the chair. Honest to goodness that person was about eight feet tall, by Simon’s estimation, and he had real difficulty tearing his eyes away. 

“That’s Sheriff Jawara.” Sunday whispered, “He’s from the Republic of Benin. --Hello, Prince. Thank you for making time for me. This is Simon Milligan.” 

Sebastian LaCroix was young looking, in person, with an angelic countenance, only a hair out of place. Simon had seen her on the news not that long ago, advocating in a studio for better attention given to global warming, something about banning fluorocarbons. It was a hot-topic issue at that time, though climate change through the greenhouse effect had been old news for thirty-odd years. Simon only remembered her because he’d been impressed by someone who didn’t stammer, and who didn’t blink a lot under hot and uncomfortable studio lights. 

“Mr. Milligan. I’ve seen your show.” LaCroix said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s shit.” Simon returned with feeling.

This almost startled a laugh out of her - surely it did a smile, but one that was careful not to show teeth. Funny that someone who wasn’t aware and wouldn’t be looking might draw a completely different conclusion, that Sebastian was somehow self conscious, rather than in the habit of hiding telltale needle canines.

“It is my business to address whatever may threaten the safety and security of the ‘supernatural’ beings in my city, Mr. Milligan. I understand that you have had an encounter yourself. When was it?”

“A--a few hours ago.” Simon looked to Sunny, who nodded encouragingly. “My crew and I were filming in the abandoned Linda Vista Hospital, and this - creature, she attacked us. She killed-...” 

LaCroix did not interrupt him, watching him without emotion, but also without cruelty. She simply waited. 

“--All of them. I’m sorry.” Simon managed to steady his voice again, “I think I’m only alive because Sunny here showed up.” 

That was probably true, but Sebastian didn’t push the point. She folded her hands on the desk, instead. “Mr. Milligan, would you like to forget what you have seen?” 

Simon was flabbergasted. “Yes. Absolutely.” 

It was evident he didn’t understand, at least not completely, that this was not a hypothetical question. “Everything? All of it? The existence of our kind, the deaths of your film crew, each fact connected to the events at the hospital tonight. I will remove it from your mind; you will believe that your crew died tragically when the hospital’s unstable foundation collapsed and buried them before your eyes. This will be the reality for you, inasfar as you will be able to remember. There will be a part of your mind that knows this is a lie, but that part will manifest itself as the denial of grief, and the fog of traumatic misunderstanding. Even if you seek therapy and hypnosis, you will never uncover the truth of what you really saw.” 

Simon didn’t argue that this wasn’t possible: he’d definitely seen enough shit that evening. He glanced at Sunday. “Even you?” 

“Yes.” LaCroix opened her hands, “Even Sunday.” 

Simon took a deep breath, actually astonished that this seemed to be a choice he could make. “What’s the red pill?” 

At LaCroix’s blank look, he elaborated, “What if I don’t want to forget?” 

The small Kindred visibly recalculated, but it didn’t take her long. “You will be released fully into Sunday’s charge. They will protect you and keep you away from human society - you cannot be trusted to lie under your own power to the authorities. Too much is at stake. You will, in essence, give up everything in your life, as if you had died, and join a sort of witness protection program of the underworld. You may have nightmares and difficulty processing what you have seen, and there will be no one for you to talk to who is human, with the exception of ghouls who work for us.” 

Simon was torn for a split second between what felt like monumental destiny. For years he had plied his trade in lies and deception, and had consoled himself with rationalizations that it was what the public wanted. But Simon’s dreams - what he wanted - had been buried in the sediment of years. Was there a time that he felt the supernatural could exist, and was more than hokey melodrama and sound effects added in post production? 

He stood on the threshold of the gates of horn and ivory, and Sunday moved beside him quietly, to put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Simon. Whatever you decide, it’ll be okay.”

Surprise and a sudden, alien resilience curled into his spine. It didn’t seem like the Ventrue was offering an unconditional, non-expiring amnesia tonic; it was now or never.

“I want to remember. I - can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t think I want - to have false memories, I want the truth. Even if your version is frankly a lot more soothing.”

And boy was it a low bar when ‘entire crew dies in building crush before your eyes’ was the nicer memory.

Sebastian laced her fingers. “If you give this information to the media, or to anyone who isn’t privileged to have it, we will find you, and we will kill you, and it will not be a merciful death. Jawara?” 

The Sheriff, impossibly muscled, turned his milky eyes on Simon, and opened his mouth. His canines looked like they could punch holes in stone.

The mortal held up both hands in preemptive surrender. “Understood. I mean - I won’t - I swear.”

“Good. Sunday, was there anything else?” 

The Nosferatu approached the desk, crouching with reverence and a delighted smile. They was _smitten_ , Simon realized, and not even bothering to disguise it. That was unusual - but more unusual, LaCroix didn’t seem repulsed or frightened by their appearance and obvious devotion.

“Thank you, my Prince. I just wanted to ask what the rule was on ghouling. If it needs your permission. You remember Heather.” 

LaCroix appeared to remember her, at least, and opened one hand. “I allow a certain degree of common sense in my domain. Your first agent was hardly as clear-cut as that, and she has had sufficient time to recover from her ordeal and return to a normal life. In time, even without domination, the mind irons out brief encounters with the supernatural and questions if they ever happened, so long as nothing else reinforces the first experience.”

“So if Simon wanted to be my - agent...?” 

“Wait, what does that entail?” Simon wasn’t quite as nervous as before, his trust in Sunday growing exponentially by the moment. “...You have a screenplay? I do know people.” 

“Not that kind of agent.” Sunday laughed, “It’s a more polite term for a human who works for the Camarilla. Ghouls. And I think ghouls are bound to one person, and agents work for the whole sect?” LaCroix confirmed with a quiet nod. “Thank you, Prince LaCroix. That’s all.” 

LaCroix let them leave with no further ominous warning, and Sunday explained on the elevator ride down, “Usually when Kindred are Embraced, their Sire gives them all the information. But mine couldn’t. So I’ve had to pick it up from other people who’ll tell me things... I’d like to introduce you to them. Mercurio and Knox Harrington are human, Mercurio works for LaCroix, and Knox works for Bertram Tung. Knox helps Tung because he’s a Nosferatu like me, so Knox can go places and be seen that Tung can’t.”

“Well.” Simon evaluated himself in the mirrored surface of the elevator. “I’m not exactly an unknown face. And your Prince in there just said if I break the rules, I’m as good as dead, which I’d like to avoid.” 

“She has to say that.” Sunday soothed, “She knows you won’t. But the Prince is responsible for helping keep the Masquerade,” 

“Mmm,” Simon agreed, too-quickly, “I won’t, I mean it. It wouldn’t be a good way to pay you back for not killing me, put it that way.” 

“You don’t owe me anything,” Sunday reassured, “I know how hard this is. I do.”

A nod from their mortal companion, because Simon suspected that was true. “Give me a little advice, then. What should I do, if I can’t help the way your other agents do, but I don’t want to do _nothing_.” 

Sunday thought about it. “I know every sewer exit and entrance, so I can help you figure out where you are. It means you have to live like a Nosferatu for a while, but that’s not so bad. Maybe Mercurio needs help with something? Do you want to meet him?” 

“Why not?” Simon gnawed a cuticle, “As sad as it might sound, this is the most positive social interaction I’ve had in weeks. Did you see that - Sheriff? He was huge. What was with that guy? What kind of clan is he?” 

“Nagloper.” Sunday was only too happy to answer, “Tung told me it’s a sub-group of Tzimisce. They can change themselves to look like ... mostly animal hybrids, I guess? Horns, and talons, and scales.” 

Simon watched the back of Sunday’s head as they re-took the sewer grounds, following with less and less reservation now that the worst had passed. “You really love this shit, don’t you.” 

Sunday grinned. 

Mercurio was at his place, lounging on the couch - to see him there made Sunday warm and happy. The Nosferatu had listened well to Rosa, and picked up on several things even subconsciously. The fact that Mercurio was taking a gun apart to clean it didn’t seem to bother Sunday, though Simon was less familiar with the criminal underbelly of Los Angeles (unless the lite drug dealing aspects counted), and hung back in the doorway. 

“Well if it isn’t Sunday Latimore.” Mercurio caught one of Sunday’s trailing paws, warm and open, and gave it an encouraging squeeze, without getting up, but mostly because there were bits of metal all over his lap. “How are you doin’, old buddy?”

 _Latimore._ Simon ran that name through his head a few times, trying to cross reference it. Hadn’t there been a small missing person’s report not that long ago? He didn’t usually listen to those, but it was an unusual name and it had stuck out to him. Yeah, it could have been. Just another person vanished into the aether in America, never to turn up again as breathing or body parts. 

Even if there weren’t that many Kindred, Simon had to wonder how much of the unusual parts of human society warped and bent quietly around their influences, like eddies in a running stream. Or was that an excuse? Were humans just as good at being horrible without monstrous assistance? 

It wasn’t like he would get numbers on how many serial killers were vampires, after all. 

“I’m doing good.” Sunny beamed at Mercurio, just as authentically happy to be around him as they had been to be around LaCroix. “How about you? Are you totally healed now?”

“Yep. I got it all covered, Sunshine. Working on a special order for a client of mine in Vegas.” He indicated the weapon, then glanced over at Simon. “You can come in, you know. Who are you?” 

“So much for instant recognition owing to my fame and success.” Simon gestured to himself, imperiously, “I’m Simon Milligan, of Haunted L.A.”

Mercurio smiled, “Don’t feel too bad. I don’t watch much TV. If you’re with Sunny, it must mean you were involved in somethin big and unpleasant, am I right?” 

“Very unpleasant.” Simon agreed. He thought, astonishingly for the first time since this high stress encounter began, of the cluster of medicine bottles on his bathroom counter. A lifetime away, they might as well be on another planet. He hadn’t thought while Sunday was packing up to slip in there and get them. 

Maybe it was better not to. He hadn’t been doing that long; it was an answer to his generally failing career, and he hadn’t yet gotten into mixing them with alcohol, or crushing them up so they’d take effect faster. But if anything was going to tempt him to step up that desire, it was probably all this shit.

And yet Sunday had been supportive, Mercurio was nice. Pisha had been _terrifying_ , and he was sure the moment he slowed down it would catch up to him, like when his father had died of cancer and he hadn’t cried for an entire year and two months, until suddenly he’d heard a song on the radio and had to pull over to sob like a child. With ironic calm, Simon was sure this was going to pounce on him with the same suddenness, a lot sooner. 

“Just sit down over there.” Mercurio invited, and went back to talking quietly to Sunny. Simon sat, feeling out of place, but he didn’t need to suffer long. Soon Sunday came over to reassure him, again, that this was a lot to deal with. 

It wasn’t so much that, though he was sure the trauma didn’t help. He’d been content to slide silently down into the oblivion that was Hollywood’s merciless mouth. The deadlines, the lies, the fake smiles. The constant reinforcement that everyone he met was a predatory piece of shit person, and that he would never succeed in ‘the business’ unless he became like them. Then out of nowhere... Sunday. 

And all of this. He took a few deep breaths. Mercurio’s apartment was clean and open, and it felt safer than a lot of places, but he wanted to be back in that sewer, strangely enough. It felt like somewhere he could go that nobody would find him, that he could be by himself, and just process. 

Sunday got the message, even without having to be asked. They conferred with Mercurio and the ‘ghoul’ of the Camarilla gave him a lift downtown, briefly parting from Sunday in order to travel above-ground. In less time than he’d expected but more time than he was comfortable with, Simon was back in that underground room, and barely undressed before he was falling into the bed, something like five or six in the morning, to sink into a merciful, dreamless oblivion. 

There was no time down there in the sewers, and no clocks, either. The only sounds were the humming of generators and the gentle sloshing of water through the pipes outside. Even the rats sung at frequencies too high for human ears. Simon slept for a very long time. When he woke, he felt the not-pleasing disorientation, another hotel room? And then everything crashed down on him mentally and he felt... distress.

Someone was typing. He didn’t recognize them - small, in a scruffy jacket, human? - turning to look at him with an earnest smile. 

“Hiya. Don’t worry, I’m a friend of Sunny’s. A good friend, actually! My name’s Knox Harrington; I’m Tung’s ghoul. I’m just keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re okay while Sunny’s on official Prince business.” 

Simon absorbed the information, “What time is it?” 

“Uhhh about eight PM.” Knox checked a small timepiece. “Yep. Close enough.” 

Simon sat up, slowly. “Can I ask you to do a favor for me?”

“Sure. Name it!” Knox gave him the most cheerful, spunky grin ever. 

“I need some medicine from my apartment.” 

Knox’s grin didn’t turn and flee, but it definitely started looking around for the exit. “Oh, sorry. No can do. Nobody should be going near your place. You’re gonna be declared a missing person soon.” 

“Oh.” Simon let it go at that, already calculating where he might be able to pick up a different score, and whether or not he could sneak out later and return - nobody would see him! “Okay. So what kind of business does Sunny get up to when they aren’t saving charity cases from monsters?” 

“You’re not a charity case.” Knox reassured softly, without any pity, “Sunny does all sorts of things for all sorts of people. They helped me get rid of a Kuei-Jin stalker without even asking for anything in return. Sunny’s one of the best people I know.”

Simon couldn’t see Knox as a helpless waste of life, and that helped him take it a little easier on himself. He took a deep breath. “Alright. So you can’t get anything from my apartment.” In fairness, Sunday had actually warned him, not that Knox needed to know that. “Want to go half on a pizza?” 

“Sure!” 

Knox had to leave to _get_ the pizza, and didn’t lock Simon in, or anything. Trusting! He sat for about four minutes, to be certain the disarmingly bouyant ghoul had left, and then opened the door. He got two steps down into the water, checking that the coast was clear, before a soft, gravelly voice arrested his progress.

“C’mon, Milligan. You’re smarter than that.” 

Oh. Oh dear.

“More monsters in one week than you saw in five years of syndicated television.” Bertram Tung stepped out of the shadows, hands in his pockets to disguise that they were closer to thick-clawed paws, but there was no disguising the almost alien shape of his head, the gleam of his Halloween-themed eyes. Simon let out a helpless laugh, caught between surrender and bolting, and Tung zeroed in on that fear sympathetically.

“Don’t worry. I’m not interested in killing you, only stopping you from wasting everybody’s time - including your own. Believe me, you don’t know these sewers well enough to be roaming around in them.” His eyebrows went up, “You want the drugs from your place, huh. That’s what you asked Knox for.” 

Oddly, there was no condemnation in his voice. Simon looked away, guilty regardless. 

Tung sighed through his nose. “I’ll get them for you, but you’ll owe me.” 

“--Owe you--what? Blood?” Simon queried, nervous. 

“Ha! I wouldn’t be much of an Elder if I had to pick on mortal addiction for my own food, now, would I?” Tung stepped closer, subtly herding Simon back toward Sunday’s room. “No, you need to recognize this shit is bad for you. You’ll pay me back by taking the amount I give you, with a view to getting clean in six months. I promise the way I’ll do it will keep you from having dangerous side effects.” 

Simon stared at him. “Are you a doctor?” 

“No. I just lived through the Jiaqing Emperor’s war on opium smuggling.” Tung was flat, at Simon’s uncomprehending look, “Seventeen hundred something. I’m old, and I know what I’m doing. Do you trust me?”

It was better than the prospect of being addicted to something he could no longer easily obtain, but Simon still hesitated. “You can’t - turn me into a vampire? That would be easier.”

Tung rasped a laugh, “Oh, sweetheart. No, no, it wouldn’t be easier. C’mon. What’ll it be? Less drugs, or no drugs? You _don’t_ want to go without, trust me. There’s no way to describe how much that sucks.” 

Simon’s mouth worked, “Yeah. Okay. I mean - thank -- you? Are you serious that I only owe you... doing it properly, quitting?” 

Tung shrugged. “You’d be surprised how useful good relations with mortals are in the long run. You might want to help me all by yourself. And if you don’t, I probably wouldn’t need your help.” He winked, and then stepped back, “Stay here. I’ll bring your drugs, cupcake.” 

Simon stepped back into the room, and sat down on the bed, his thoughts racing. He _had_ imagined quitting, but not at the behest of an oddly maternal-feeling nightmare entity, and their nightmare friends of the same clan. All this support from these monstrous individuals was overwhelming, on top of the revelations that they existed at all. 

He was exceedingly grateful for the pizza, when Knox returned, and avoided saying anything about the meeting with Tung. He suspected it would only have been prompted by his desire to leave, and he didn’t want anyone - Sunny particularly - to be disappointed. 

If someone had told him he would be eating pizza in a sewer after faking his death, and choosing that time to _give up_ his addiction, he wouldn’t have believed them.


End file.
